


Ciorba de Perisoare

by Sanctum_Sanctorum



Category: Doctor Strange (2016)
Genre: Falling In Love, First Kiss, First Meetings, Karl is scared, M/M, Stephen is trying, past abusive relationship (alluded to)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-25 03:29:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12027156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanctum_Sanctorum/pseuds/Sanctum_Sanctorum
Summary: After Kaecilius, Karl swore he'd never let himself fall for someone again... Then he met Stephen Strange.





	Ciorba de Perisoare

Karl Mordo was deep in thought as he walked through the Kathmandu streets. It had been a year today since Kaecilius had betrayed him and the Ancient One and everyone else in Kamar-Taj and Karl couldn’t but think of the man and what he had done. Karl wasn't squeamish but to this day he could still close his eyes and see the beheaded body of the old librarian lying on the floor. He was a good man and hadn't deserved to be struck down like that. Anger flared up in Karl's chest, he blamed himself for ever allowing himself to be taken in by Kaecilius, he blamed himself for what the man had become. He should have seen the warning signs sooner, he should have known the man Kaecilius really was but he'd been completely fooled by the man. Karl hated to admit it but he'd loved him, he'd really loved him. The man had been fiery and headstrong but Karl Mordo had loved him and the betrayal still stung. He'd allowed himself to be taken in by a disgusting and wretched man and he wouldn't be able to rest properly until he knew Kaecilius had been defeated. 

"Kamar-Taj?" 

Karl was brought out of his thoughts. He looked over to where the voice had come from to see a tall and shaggy white man asking a passer-by for directions. The man looked defeated when the passer-by simply walked on. Karl saw as the man sighed and held his head a little lower. 

Karl watched as the man shuffled in the street for a few moments seemingly deciding where to go next before continuing down the road. Karl bit his lip and looked back over his shoulder before deciding to follow the man, it was one of his duties to try and recruit new students only... the last time he'd recruited a new student his name had been Kaecilius. Karl didn't have the best track record. His head was telling him to walk on by and leave the man to his own devices just like what he should have done when he saw Kaecilius on the streets all those years ago but… There was something about this man that intrigued Karl and he wanted to know more about him. Finally with one look back over his shoulder Karl decided to track the mysterious man and learn more about him.

Karl trailed the man for the best part of an hour, he wanted to build a good picture of who he was before actually talking to him. He had jumped into bringing Kaecilius back and look how that had turned out. Karl would never cease to feel uneasy when he thought of his and Kaecilius’ meeting. He tried to clear his thoughts and put the man out of his head and focus on the man he was following. So far Karl had built a reasonable picture up of the man before him. He was American and from money, Karl could catch a glimpse of the rather expensive looking watch that adorned the man's wrist. Granted, Karl wasn't an expert on watches but he was pretty sure it probably cost half the average person's yearly salary. Although clearly something horrible had happened the American and money was not something he had an abundance of now. Looking at the man's clothes and hair Karl suspected he was homeless. Karl also saw that the man held his hands gingerly and bandages were wrapped from the knuckles and up his wrists. So, rich American hurts himself badly, can't work, loses his home, hears of Kamar-Taj and here he is... Karl had seen dozens of cases like his. He remembered a man called Pangborn from a few years ago who had left as soon as he realised he could use his newfound powers to walk. Karl rolled his eyes at the mere memory of him. Men who only drained Kamar-Taj of what was useful to them and left were of no interest to him and Karl highly suspected the man before him would be no different. 

The man turned and walked down a side street and Karl was tempted not to follow him anymore. He just seemed like an arrogant man who wasn’t used to getting his own way and his likely selfish nature was not something Kamar-Taj needed. However, he decided to follow him for ten more minutes and see if the man did anything to prove him wrong before leaving him to fend for himself in the streets of Kathmandu. Karl suspected he'd be dead by the end of the month. People like this man who clearly weren’t streetwise didn’t last long here. 

Karl hid behind a doorway as the two of them were the only ones on the street and he didn’t want to be seen, he watched as the man in front of him visibly slumped once he was alone. Karl felt a strange tightness in his chest at the sight of him. He never usually felt for people like this, he had, over time, desensitised himself to feeling for the suffering of others. One had to when living in Kathmandu. However... There was something about this man that still enthralled Karl. He felt that now they were alone he was seeing a vulnerability to the man that hadn’t been present on the busy main street. 

Karl saw a dog limp past the American and watched as the man froze and turned around and bent down and beckoned the dog towards him. Karl watched as the man made a splint for the dog before unwrapping one of his own bandages and wrapping it wound the dog's leg. It was in that moment that Karl decided to bring this man back with him to Kamar-Taj. Kaecilius definitely would never have helped an injured animal and Karl could sense that there was something special about this man. Anyone who could recognise other’s needed help whilst in a pit of despair themselves was someone who would be of interest to the Ancient One. 

Karl was about to approach the man when he realised he and the man were no longer alone on the street. Hw saw the muggers before the American did and he cursed under his breath. He knew the man flashing his watch was a foolish thing to do and now he was about to pay the price. Karl stood by as the American pleaded for his watch before the men surrounded him tighter. The man threw a punch and Karl watched as he instantly clutched his pained hand before being thrown to the ground and kicked repeatedly. Karl was certain that these men would kill the man and he couldn't let that happen. 

Karl quickly beat off the muggers and retrieved the American's watch from the ring leader and regrettably found it had been broken in the fight. He grimaced before turning and handing it back to the shocked looking American. 

"You're looking for Kamar-Taj?"

*** 

It had been about three months since Karl had brought Stephen to Kamar-Taj and the ex-surgeon was fitting it well. Karl was pleased to see he was a quick learner and once he'd truly been shown that his hands wouldn't set him back when it came to working on his magic he'd excelled at his teaching. Wong had told Karl that Stephen was already reading books from the library that students three years into their studies often struggled with never mind three months. Karl couldn't help but feel a sense of pride burst in his chest knowing that Stephen was doing well and he was the one who brought him here to be trained. He tried to ignore the nagging voice in the back of his head that told him Kaecilius had excelled at his studies also. Stephen was not Kaecilius. Stephen was not Kaecilius. Stephen was not Kaecilius. Karl found himself repeating this mantra to himself often, he needed to constantly remind himself that their new student was not like their previous one. This man was not the man who betrayed them. 

Stephen was… different. Karl looked over at the other man engrossed in a book in the corner of the library. Stephen was unlike anyone he’d ever met. 

Karl liked Stephen. He enjoyed the man's company and he found he could loosen up around him. Stephen often made him laugh and forget about the stresses of Kamar-Taj and the impending trouble that Kaecilius was undoubtedly brewing. Karl enjoyed hearing Stephen's stories of his past life in New York and his life before becoming a doctor. He enjoyed listening to his jokes and anecdotes from his past relationships. He learned that Stephen was pansexual and one night over perhaps too many drinks Stephen told him about how he'd discovered his sexuality and coming out and how he'd always felt despite everything his father had always been disappointed in him. When Stephen talked about his father Karl saw that new sense of vulnerability to Stephen he had caught a brief glimpse of when they’d been alone on that side street in the city all those weeks ago. In that moment Karl wanted nothing more than to hold him and stroke his hair and kiss his head and tell him he wasn't a disappointment and that he would never allow anyone to hurt him. 

The story quickly changed to Stephen talking about a disastrous trip he'd gone on with his med school boyfriend to Amsterdam and as Stephen laughed telling his story with his face flushed with drink and his hair ruffled from leaning back against the sofa and his voice rough from the alcohol that Karl made a realisation. 

He was falling in love with Stephen Strange. 

Shit. 

Karl couldn't seem to focus on anything else Stephen said. He couldn't let himself fall in love again. Not after Kaecilius. Kaecilius had broken something inside of Karl, something he felt he could never fix. He couldn't leave himself to be that vulnerable again. He just couldn't do it.

He couldn't.

He just couldn't.

"Karl?" asked Stephen softly. 

Karl only then realised that the other man had stopped speaking. 

Stephen leant forward and put his hand on Karl's knee. "Are you okay?" he asked his tone gentle. 

Karl stared at the shaking hand on his knee. Stephen's hand shaking almost made his whole knee feel like it was vibrating. Karl just stared at it, he thought of the last time someone had touched him. 

Kaecilius.

Karl suddenly felt he was going to be sick. The touch of Stephen's hand on his knee felt like a burning iron and all Karl could think of was Kaecilius.

Kaecilius.

Kaecilius. 

Karl jumped up from the sofa so quickly he knocked Stephen off of it. 

"Karl! called Stephen after him from the floor as he tried to pick himself up. "Wait! Are you okay?"

Karl could feel the panic rising and he could taste bile and he needed to get out. Now. 

"I have to go."

"Not without telling me what's wrong," said Stephen getting to his feet with a wobble and following Karl.

"Leave it, Stephen."

"But, Karl I-

"I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!" snapped Karl turning back around to snap at Stephen. 

Stephen flinched at Karl's outburst but did what he was told and took a step backwards and let the other man leave. 

Karl slammed the door behind him and Stephen again flinched at the sound. 

Everything had been going to well but Stephen felt he'd really fucked everything up somehow. Stephen collapsed down sadly in his chair and drained his drink as he felt he'd just lost the best thing that had happened to him since his accident all those months ago only this time he didn’t even know what he’d done wrong. 

***

Stephen didn't know what he'd done to Karl but he hated himself for it. It had been three weeks since Karl had stormed out from when they'd been drinking and he had been pretty much ignoring Stephen since then unless he was yelling at him. Karl yelled at Stephen at least five times during each one of their training sessions nowadays. He even yelled at Stephen for things that weren't his fault. It felt like being back at elementary school. Stephen half expected Karl to give him a detention any day now.  
He kept going over to confront Karl about it and ask him what was wrong but every time he went to speak to the man he pushed past Stephen and rushed off.   
Stephen was both worried and frustrated. 

"Has Karl seemed very off to you recently?" asked Stephen as he pulled a book down from one of the shelves in the library about a month later.

“No talking in the library," responded Wong bluntly.

 

Stephen rolled his eyes but otherwise ignored the librarian's comment. 

"He hasn't seemed himself recently," continued Stephen. "He always seems to be angry with me."

"He wouldn't be the only one."

"Wong," said Stephen deadpan. "I'm serious."

"So am I," said Wong. 

Stephen sighed angrily and went back to looking at the books. They didn't speak again for a few minutes until Stephen finally broke the silence again. "I'm worried about him," he said softly. 

"Karl is an angry man, Stephen," Wong said. "He's also a man with many demons. His demons often consume him and when they do he lashes out. He'll come around. I'm sure it's nothing against you personally." 

Stephen wasn't so sure. 

Wong could tell Stephen wasn't satisfied with that answer and sighed. "I do however know one thing."

Stephen looked over to him expectantly.

"Make him soup."

"Soup?" 

"Ciorba de Perisoare."

"Excuse me?" 

Wong rolled his eyes. "It's a Romanian soup."

Stephen nodded dumbly. 

"Karl's from Romania," Wong said in a I-can't-believe-I-have-to-spell-this-out-for-you kind of tone. 

"Oh," said Stephen. "Of course... yeah... I'll... I'll make...soup then."

Wong went back to his books clearly done with this conversation. 

"You don't happen to have a recipe do you?"

"Goodbye Stephen."

Stephen shrugged. "Later, Bono."

***

It turned out Ciorba de Perisoare didn't come from a packet or a can and that Stephen would have to make it from scratch. 

The first five videos Stephen looked up for the recipe on YouTube had been in Romanian and he'd ended up copying and pasting a recipe from a Romanian blog into Google Translate. 

Looking at the loosely translated recipe Stephen thought it had made more sense before translating even though he didn't have a word of Romanian. 

Stephen finally got a list together of what he thought were the ingredients and went down to the kitchen to start preparing the soup. 

They didn't have any fresh onions which the recipe stressed were essential but after rummaging around the fridge Stephen found half a jar of pickled onion. He untwisted the cap with difficulty and smelt it. That was a mistake. Stephen spent the next minute or so coughing and trying not to gag. He checked the expiry date. 

October 2014.

"It can't really go off if it's pickled though," he thought to himself. "Right?" Figuring it was the next best thing the pantry had to offer Stephen threw the remainder of the jar into the pot.

Stephen looked for more of the ingredients in the kitchen and discovered that they only had canned carrots and no tomato paste and Stephen was starting to think that this really wasn't going well at all. 

When Stephen dropped the can of carrots on the floor and they burst out over the tiles like flailing goldfish, Stephen really decided this wasn't going well. 

He picked up a handful of the carrots and ran them under the tap before throwing them into the pot. He told himself that today the “ten second rule” was golden.

He decided to substitute the tomato paste for ketchup and as the ingredients were coming together Stephen was certain that if anyone from Romania saw him sabotaging their soup like this he'd never be allowed into the country. 

Stephen stirred all the vegetables in the pot and grimaced. None of the pictures had been this... brown colour. Maybe it'd be better when he added the meatballs... 

They didn't have ground pork which Stephen wasn't surprised by at this stage. He was starting to think Wong had cleared the kitchen out of all of the ingredients of Ciorba de Perisoare just to mess with him so he settled on minced chicken. 

By the end Stephen just added whatever he could find in the cupboards. He didn't know what lovage was so he badly chopped up some basil and threw that into the pot and he poured in soy sauce, Tabasco and added black and white pepper and salt and the he was just in the process of adding lemon juice when a towel he'd put beside the hob caught light and the smoke alarm began blaring. 

"Shit shit shit shit."

Stephen threw the smoking towel in the sink and doused it in water just as Karl came barging in. 

"Strange?" asked Karl as he walked into the smoke filled kitchen. Karl felt something mush under his foot and he lifted his boot to see he'd stood on several pieces of carrot. The kitchen was an absolute mess. Food, condiments and dirty utensils littered the counters. Karl had never seen the kitchen in such a mess. "Stephen,” he started, his tone not unlike a parent about to scold their child. “What did you do?" 

"I made soup," said Stephen as he pulled a bowl down from one of the cupboards and began to shakenly ladle some sort of steaming brown liquid into it. Karl couldn't help but notice that a lot of the "soup" seemed to end up on the floor. 

Karl took another look around the kitchen and decided the doctor was living up to his name with his unorthodox antics. "You could have just ordered take out," said Karl taking a step back to leave. "Would have made less of a mess."

Stephen's face fell as he noticed Karl was moving closer to the door. "You're leaving?"

"Well I am definitely not cleaning up your mess, Strange." Karl moaned trying his best not to smile and laugh at the fact that for a man who boasted of getting his MD and PhD at the same time, making a bowl of soup had been too much for him. In fact, Karl thought it was endearing. The whole kitchen a mess around him and a towel smoking in the sink and food everywhere and Stephen just standing there with a bowl of "soup". Karl felt that fluttering feeling in his chest again. He wanted nothing more than to close the distance between them and kiss him. To push him against the counter and keep kissing him. Karl shook his head. 

No. 

Not again. You can't fall for someone again.

No.

Karl bit back his feelings and he felt his anger rise again. "You should be ashamed of this mess. Look at the food you've just thrown to the floor and starving people on the streets you sh-

Stephen hung his head, defeated. "I made it for you," he said softly. 

"What?"

Stephen lifted his head. "The soup. I made it for you, okay? Ciorba de Perisoare. Wong told me you liked it and that maybe a nice meal from Romania might make you feel better. I don't know what I did to you Karl and I know I can he a total asshole but I felt I hurt you and I just wanted to make amends but guess I fucked that up too." 

Stephen put the bowl down angrily on the table and folded his arms and leaned back against the counter. 

Karl was stunned. "You," he said but his voice got caught in his throat. "You made me soup?"

"I tried to."

Kaecilius had never done this. Kaecilius had never considered Karl's feelings or asked for advice on how to make him feel better or cooked him a meal. Kaecilius had often just ignored him until he needed something and fucked him without ever even looking at him. Karl felt his anger dissipate and the fluttering feeling return in his chest. No one had ever down anything like this for him before.

Ever.

Karl found himself smiling despite himself. "Stephen," he said taking a step forward towards the table. "Thank you."

If Stephen was surprised by Karl’s thanks, he didn’t show it. "I think maybe you should do the cleaning up after that guilt tripping rant," said Stephen with a smirk. 

Karl pulled the bowl towards him. It looked like something from a sewer. "ummmmm maybe I'll try this for and we'll see which one of us should be apologising."

If death had a flavour it would be Stephen's soup. Karl had faced a lot in Kamar-Taj but nothing he had ever experienced was as difficult as swallowing a spoonful of this soup. 

"So how is it?" asked Stephen expectantly. 

Karl audibly swallowed. "It feels like something crawled into my mouth and died."

"That's a delicacy in Romania, right?"

Karl laughed then. "How about we clean all this up and head out for dinner?" 

Stephen smiled as he finally felt that whatever had happened between them over the last few weeks was beginning to lift and the tension was fading. "I'd like that a lot."

The American reached to take the pot over to the sink but his hand spasmed and he dropped the pot in a yelp of pain. 

The hot soup spilled all over the doctor's shirt as the pot crashed to the floor. 

"STEPHEN!" Yelled Karl jumping up from the table and raced over towards the other man. "Are you okay?"

Without thinking Karl pulled at Stephen's shirt to get him out of the ruined clothing before his skin could burn from the soup. 

He pulled the shirt over Stephen's head and threw it to the floor and his hands traced over the man's chest checking he hadn't been scalded by the soup. His hand rested over Stephen's heart and he could feel the man's heartbeat.

Karl let out a breath he didn't even know he was holding. Only now truly realising he was touching Stephen’s bare skin, the flutter of Stephen’s heart under his palm. 

"I'm fine," said Stephen softly as he raised his own hand and placed it over Karl's on his chest. Karl could feel the tremor in Stephen's fingers, vibrating against his own. Karl felt in a trance looking at Stephen's calloused hand over his own before finally looking back up into the eyes of the man himself. 

Stephen was smiling at him and Karl felt himself smiling back. 

He felt Stephen's heart rate rise as the doctor cupped Karl's chin in his hand and leaned into kiss him. 

It was chaste, soft and inviting kissing Stephen. Kaecilius' kisses had been nothing like this. Kaecilius had always bullied his way into kissing Karl, he'd seemed to think a kiss wasn't a kiss if it didn't result in a bruise. 

Stephen was nothing like Kaecilius. Karl was certain of that now.

Stephen broke the kiss oh too soon but smiled as he pulled away. "I've wanted to do that since you beat up those muggers when we met."

Karl leant in this time to kiss Stephen again and gently led him towards the counter until Stephen was pressed against it and they deepened their kiss. They continued kissing until the timer on the cooker sounded and interrupted them. Karl groaned against Stephen's mouth and broke the kiss to switch it off. 

"Your mouth tastes horrible," said Stephen with a smirk. Karl looked at him. His lips were plumb from the kissing and Karl thought it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. "I can't believe you actually tried my shitty soup." 

Karl chuckled and broke the distance between them again putting his arms around Stephen's bare shoulders, the doctor's hands instantly resting on Karl's hips. "It was truly horrible soup," agreed Karl. "It was so bad that I'm going to punish you by kissing you again."

Stephen smiled. "Please do."

So he did.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is stemmed from a conversation I had with the Strordo King, Basil. It's the first time I've posted a fic in a long time so be kind. I hope you enjoyed it. :)


End file.
